Abstract

The processing density of silicon circuitry is currently limited by the two-dimensional nature of the interconnections on silicon circuits. In addition, parallel processing is an attractive architecture for many applications, such a^s image processing and generation. To extend the interconnectivity of silicon into the third dimension and to achieve a high degree of parallel processing, we demonstrate herein the vertical optical interconnection of two low cost silicon circuits. This bidirectional vertical optical communication through stacked silicon circuits, as illustrated in Fig. 1, is achieved by integrating thin-film InGaAsP-based emitters and photodetectors that operate at 1.3 μm (to which the silicon is transparent) directly onto the silicon circuit.

© 1995 Optical Society of America